Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 78: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

-don’t answer. 584 You see, missing that train can’t have been nearly so important as you fancied; he just left ft and came to look for you, and he wasn’t even annoyed about losing it!” The tousled head shook slowly. “Vou don’t know Billy, Tom. He has different ways of being angry. When he’s noisy, it’s terrible. But when he’s so mad that he never shows a sign of it—”’ ce Yes?” “T don’t want to talk about it!” Mary shuddered. ‘‘ What—what shall I do now?” . : “Do you want to meetehim accidentally, somewhere here in town, once you have some clothes, tell him the best one we can think up and have the whole show over on the spot?” ~ “No! Because—”’ “I understand. I suppose it is rather risky,” Thomas said quickly. “ All right, then. We'll stick to the original scheme, then. You’ve got plenty of cash?” “ Plenty.. In my bag, with my ticket and —everything.” ‘Good enough! I'll get the bag and the car and we'll start you off just as if Billy hadn’t stopped over,” Thomas said quietly. “‘That’s best, anyway. Get your train and keep right on to New York. “ Wire back to your dear Uncle Arthur and have him tell Bill what hotel to find you at. That’s all, isn’t it?” “Tt is, if you get my bag!” moaned Mary, who was very badly shaken indeed. “You come back to the living-room, Mary,” Thomas said firmly, and steered the uncertain iron form from its hiding-place. ‘“‘In here! Now, you settle right down in that chair and just be a good, patient little “ girl for that ten minutes, will you? “If the phone rings or the bell rings, You'll be all right?” Mary nodded numbly. Thomas whisked out overcoat and hat again—glanced into the corridor and found it empty—turned back for a final smile at Mary Emerson, the bride of William, who had begged his par- don. Her lovely head rested upon the cushions of the chair; her lovely chin rested upon an unyielding breast-platé. Thomas, then, departed, whistling. He’ returned, but not whistling, with the oogle ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ten minutes hardly gone. Eyes clouded despite his best efforts and the smile alto- gether vanished, Thomas slipped into his apartment in a furtive, criminal fashion and, once inside, stood stock still and stared at Mary for a moment. She had not altered a single detail of her position, but she altered it now and quite abruptly. With a harsh, clattering rattle, Mary struggled to her feet and stood sway- ing as she cried: ““My bag! You didn’t get my bag!” “IT couldn’t, Mary!” Thomas said thinly. “T knew it! I knew it!” Mary choked. “That wretched check—” “It wasn’t the wretched check, my child. The bag isn’t down there. It wasn’t there when I landed—and I made some trip, be- lieve me!” puffed young Mr. Henning. .“ And it’s lost now, aid it has all the clothes I wanted!” — Thomas locked the door and advanced hurriedly. “ Don’t talk so loud, Mary. It isn’t lost, you know. Bill has it!” “Yes. I went straight in to old Harkness and learned the worst in one minute, Mary. It appears that Bill hunted all over the sta- tion for you while the train was standing there and he spotted your bag on the shelf the minute his eye lighted on it. “Then the train went out and—what- ever his plans may be—Bill merely went in and insisted on having the bag, and Harkness, knowing him of course, finally gave it to him. That’s the whole story. It’s—er—too bad!” — : His smile came slowly and forlornly, In coldest truth, Thomas was more disturbed just then than he had been at any previous moment of the evening; be one’s disposition optimistic as it may, it is rather unnerving to have definitely on hand a bride whose only outer raiment is an iron suit and whose husband is likely to appear at any mo- ment. Yet nothing of this, as it seemed, appealed to Mary; indeed, Thomas’s smile merely infuriated: her! “Too bad!” she cried hotly. ‘ You— you ruin my whole life and then grin and tell me it’s—too bad!” Original fror ~~ (Cl (So) (CO) HE OHIO STATE UI